


Astray

by beansquat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: - a little after the episode 'Hole in the Sky', Alternate Reality, Gen, Season Four divergent, Young Allura goes on an adventure, and makes friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-09-23 16:52:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17084114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beansquat/pseuds/beansquat
Summary: Young Allura falls into an inter-reality wormhole she created by accident. Now she must find her way back home with the help of new friends.





	1. Hazy Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lightning_Strikes_Again](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightning_Strikes_Again/gifts).



Allura was turning six years old today. 

She was beside herself with excitement as she put on a new dress---a soft fabric made of light blue and golden trims. Her father had allowed her to select it just the other day, making her feel all the more like she was bigger and more grown-up. She was picking her own outfits and shoes now, who knew what was next.

Today is going to be perfect, she thinks to herself as she slips on a pair of comfortable shoes to match. Wiggling her toes, the young princess bounded out of her room to find Coran or perhaps Nan-Nan to show off her dress.

Better yet, maybe they could let her grab an extra treat from the kitchen since it was her special day.

Allura beamed as she skipped down the hallways.

When she reached the kitchen doors, the Altean princess paused to think. She had not yet seen her father or mother today. It was rather early in the day cycle but they must be up already and doing important things, she reasoned with herself. Perhaps she could bring them something too.

Nodding to herself, Allura then walked into the kitchen only to be greeted by Melenor herself---the Queen. Her mother.

“Oh, Mother! Good morning, have I shown you my new dress?” the girl spins, holding onto her dress. A large, gentle hand grasps her little one as the queen takes in the sight.

“I’m glad you were able to find something you would like, my dear.” 

Melenor matched her daughter’s enthusiasm with motherly patience and an adoring smile of her own. Allura lightly bounced on her toes in place, expectant as she looked up. This caused the queen to laugh, a pleasant sound in the early morning.

Her mother turned to reach for something in the nearby cabinet that Allura cannot quite see. She was certain by next year that would change. 

“Have this, my morning star. And bring the second to your father, why don’t you? He should be in the library.”

The little Altean is flabbergasted.

Her mother was normally more careful about sweets ever since that day she disappeared and ate roughly two platters of pastry. She was right, today really was a good day.

“Thank you, Mother! I love you,” she grinned. 

When Melenor bent down to kiss either one of her face markings, the girl’s face positively shined.

“Try not to dirty your dress so much today, it’s very new after all.”

“I will try, Mother!” Allura yells over her shoulder as she sprints away. Her footsteps echo even as her dress disappears behind the corner. The Altean Queen sighs ruefully.

*

Alfor hummed a mindless tune as he carefully scrawled runes into the hologram table. He had been making headway for adjusting the size of wormhole travel technology the past year and felt he was right where he would need to be for experiments.

The theories were in his mind, the magic in his hands, and time was currently on his side.

“That should do it,” he says to himself once he finished drawing in a circle around the entirety of the rune chart.

“Father!”

The king looks up immediately, setting down his pen and book. He knelt to receive the charging bundle of energy that had broken the silence of the library room.

Laughing, he kissed the forehead of his daughter who beamed at him in response.

“There’s the birthday girl,” Alfor says while gently rubbing her shoulders. “How do you feel? Bigger? Wiser?”

“I feel comfortable,” she giggled while gesturing to her dress. The motion makes her father laugh as he takes in the sight of the dress they agreed on purchasing yesterday at the Trade Center.

“It looks marvelous, Allura.”

“Thank you,” the princess chirped before holding up the pastries her mother had sent her off with. “Would you like to have one, Father? Mother says you should have one!”

Alfor blinks in pleasant surprise before pausing. He had truthfully been in the middle of an experiment just moments ago. Turning slightly to look at the hologram desk, the king finally decides.

“Thank you, Allura. Would you like to see what I have been doing?” 

He cannot respond to her questions right away as he had already bitten into the pastry---juniberry flavor, which was his favorite.

“Oh, Father! This is amazing, what exactly will you be doing?” the young Altean exclaimed once she pulled up a chair to peer at the swirling runes.

“I am trying to design new wormhole technology,” the king finally says after swallowing his bite of pastry. “Should we be successful, travel can be even more efficient.”

Nodding, Allura tried to make sense of her father’s words. She was not able to create wormholes using magic yet but maybe this coming year was the year for her to start learning how.

She sets down her napkin and pastry and leans onto the table, tilting her head this way and that to examine the curious shapes of what had been written down. Looking up at her father, she tries to not laugh at the pastry flakes that had found residence on his beard.

“What are these letters from? Is it an old language?”

“Ah, very old. It is Kritzan---an old dialect of Altea,” Alfor informs as he comes to stand beside her and peer at the work.

“Kritzan…” Allura repeats in fascination. 

She leans out further and traces a finger along some of the letters. Her mind could make connections between this alphabet and its influence on current-day Altean. It was truly fascinating.

The young Altean was so entranced by the lettering that she did not realize they began to glow as she traced over each one. Nor did she sense that her own facial markings mimicked its light.

What she did notice, was the sensation of leaning forward continuously until she faintly heard her name being called. That was when Allura reached out to grab onto something before she fell any further. 

Before she could cry out to her father, the world went dark.

*  
*  
*

“Zethrid, what was that?”

The tall woman snaps her head to look at her commanding officer. She nudges her head towards the console, signaling for him to see for himself.

“We’ve used every scanning protocol equipped on this ship and we still don’t know what the hell this energy surge was!” 

She growls in frustration, hunching over to punch in another command code.

Lotor looks on quietly, bright eyes calm and calculating. One more look at the main screen, another glance to his General.

“Axca, did you pinpoint the source?” 

He turns his head to the side, towards the other end of the large console. A solemn nod from the other Galra woman is given as she hands over a tablet---it was open on a finished scan of the cruiser ship.

“I compiled the scan data and found a general area of focus. It was not from Haggar,” Axca explains while enlarging a specific portion of the image. “We took the energy hit around the back-end of the ship. Storage level would be the best guess.”

Nodding at her report, the Galra man looked up to examine the control room. Zethrid was still running diagnostics and was growing increasingly frustrated with the buffering system. Each tap of her finger seemed to grow louder, making him wonder if they would need to replace another board if it went on longer.

Perhaps we should let Ezor barter for the next one, Lotor notes. Their budget could not be consumed by just replacing broken parts unrelated to battle.

“Sir, I can accompany you to investigate the storage units.”

 

Axca would need to stay here and back up Zethrid should something come up. He could find Ezor or Narti, he thinks to himself before declining.

“Stay here and boot up that particle barrier we’ve been developing once the systems are all online again.”

“Understood,” came the reply from both Generals.

*

Allura wakes up with a throbbing headache and a sore neck.

She groans while pulling herself off of the hard ground, rubbing her head as she slowly opens her eyes. Where had she fallen?

The room was dark even after repeatedly rubbing her eyes. The young Altean frowned, unable to make out anything in the minimal lighting. After a few seconds, her eyes begin to adjust and she can make out box shapes.

A storage unit?

Allura reaches out toward the closest object. It’s a cold, metal slab that touches her fingers. Not the same metal as the Castleship either, she realizes. The material feels different beneath her newly energized hands; there’s something subconsciously obvious to her sinking in the fact that she was not at home anymore.

Wherever she was now, her parents were not here with her.

Heart hammering, the princess begins to think. 

She had somehow made a wormhole which brought her here. Where exactly, she could not tell but surely there was a way to return to the Altean library. Now if only she could remember the rune letters.

“Who’s there?”

Looking over her shoulder, she freezes as a door slides open with an ear-stabbing squeak. The spilling light momentarily blinds her but she tries not to close her eyes for long, staring at the silhouetted figure.

Blinking rapidly, her eyes widen when she sees unfamiliar armor.

The immediate response is to scoot back as fast as she can, cramming herself between the boxes and making herself as small as possible. Allura can barely take a breath, her body trembling as she tries to keep quiet. The roar of blood in her ears is awful loud too after the sudden panic.

“Hey, come out!”

The voice is female.

She listened carefully but cannot recognize them---it was certainly not her mother. Before she can try to guess if she’s ever heard this person before, there are footsteps. Someone else was coming.

Weakly sucking in air through her mouth, Allura tries to listen in.

“Ezor, what have you found?”

The man’s voice was not familiar either, causing her stomach to sink. She was normally very good at remembering these things but nothing struck her memory here. 

Allura now cannot imagine where the wormhole took her. It was clearly not just into another room of another ship.

“Sir, I think we have a stowaway.”

“You did not check the crates when we were leaving the market port?”

“We did! You checked, I checked, even Narti checked!”

She sounds upset. It makes Allura’s hands ball up into fists as she anxiously continued to listen. Who knew what would happen if they found her here?

“Very well, I leave it to you then.”

The man left, his boots softly fading down the hall again.

Silence falls.

Allura’s heart beats harder as she strains to detect the slightest noise.

“Let’s see what we have here…”

The voice is closer.

Alarm spreads over her as she feels them approaching the crates she chose to hide between. Silently, the princess begs for them not to see her.

“Oh, lookie here!”

Allura immediately screams when a cold hand wraps around her ankle. She kicks with all the might her body can muster, all of her training tested under fire as the woman now pulls her from the hiding spot.

“Hey, kid, what are you doing here?”

The woman is dodging her thrashing feet and hands so easily. Allura desperately tries to land a strike, wincing at the grip on her foot tightening as she struggles more. In the back of her mind, she wonders how dirty she would end up getting after all.

“Woah, woah!” 

Allura smiles internally when her foot finally lands on the offending hand gripping her other leg. Once it releases her, the little Altean scrambles to her feet and races out the door. She does not stop when the woman calls for her.

Blindly turning left and right down corridors, she just ran. 

The lights along the walls are darker, dimmer. It makes the hallways an indecipherable puzzle and Allura only comes to a stop when she reaches a fork in her path with a large, glowing symbol. 

She peers up with a frown, wracking her brains for where this symbol could be from.

Either way, this was definitely not the Castle of Lions.


	2. Lucid Noon

Allura’s heart was pounding harder by the minute even as she stood frozen in place. 

Where was she?

This bright glowing symbol right in front of her prompted nothing. Sharply pointed lines and arches, forming into some sort of crest. Crests were fun to memorize for Allura, she took pride in being able to recognize fleets by their flag alone. But this particular one was just as unfamiliar as the very thing which brought her here in the first place. 

The little princess felt increasingly powerless as she reviewed the situation in her mind.

“I know you’re here, come out!”

The approaching footsteps elicit a sharp gasp from her mouth, spreading a numbness over her body as the chase resumed itself. As the boots thudded nearer to her location, the little princess made a decision on which corridor to follow then ran for it as fast and as silently as her legs could manage.

She would not let herself get caught, absolutely not.

Rounding corners, backtracking only when she reached dead-ends, Allura ignored the burn in her lungs. Digging her feet into the floor, she desperately tried to find somewhere to hide herself.

Corridors passed and soon, Allura looked up to notice that the lighting along the floor and overhead arches were no longer purple but blue. This meant she was on a new floor level.

At some point, the pursuer stopped calling for her but now there came a new danger---more people could be here and for all she knew, they might be looking too.

Maybe she could try to go back if they followed her up here?

No, no. Allura tells herself not to take the chance. She did not know this ship, it was hard to guess how she even made her way onto this floor.

By chance, as she ran down this different hall, one of its doors were open enough for her to duck in. The princess winces at not checking first but finds to her luck that the room was vacant.

Whirling her head around, several options present themselves to her---hide under a table, crouch into a corner by the larger machines and equipment, or go into the connected room.

The table was her first choice.

Crawling under it, Allura tucks her knees to her chin and tries to silence her breathing. Tries to slow down her fluttering heart which feels like it’s about to pulsate out of her body. And most definitely tries to avoid making noise when she hears a door open from behind her.

She cannot stop her eyes from widening as she sees boots circle the table. They do not sound quite like the lady who was chasing her around earlier but Allura cannot allow herself to get comfortable just yet.

But before she can conjure any inkling of a plan for what to do next, there is something touching her shoulder. Slightly cold, but warmth emanates from it as well---something alive then.

Shying away from the touch as if she were at risk of being hurt like when bumping into a sharp furniture corner, the young Altean looks over her shoulder to see a cat.

Its gaze is calm but intense, something burns within its golden eyes that she cannot fathom in her young mind. As it regards the misplaced girl the silence fortunately is not broken but Allura has been found out in some way or another regardless.

A clicking sound from above breaks through her racing thoughts.

The cat turns away and steps out from under the table, seating itself beside the boots of the person standing there still. Allura would so gladly like to know who it was but she did not let herself get too curious.

“Narti, did you happen to see a little kid pass through?”

Flinching, Allura’s eyes widen when the door she went in through opened further. In stepped the lady from earlier, the one who was looking for her. She tries to keep from getting worked up, pulse tripping over itself as she fought back terror and the urge to run again.

Odd clicks are heard overhead, from the person---Narti, she thinks---that was here with the cat. Was that her language? Allura finds herself captivated and listens carefully, trying to make sense of the hissing and clicking.

“Aw, well… Keep an eye out, she’s a fast one and kicked my hand real good.”

That comment makes the young princess swell with pride. Her training was paying off then, she let herself think. Father would certainly be proud, as would Mother. Thoughts of her parents quickly turn sour as she realizes they must be worried for her absence however. 

Queen Melenor had been in the kitchen this morning, surely she was making something for them to enjoy together. If she did not return in time, it would be a waste. As for King Alfor, he surely was beside himself right this moment for the unintentional wormholing when he could have been spending time with his daughter. It was her special day after all.

Tears threaten to spill and Allura quietly grimaces. Her spirit dampened, she hugs her knees.

How could she get back home?

The boots move.

Her eyes catch the movement of color out of the corner of her eye and she stares, watching them turn away from the table and go towards the door she had used earlier. Waiting with baited breath, Allura wonders if this might be her chance.

The person is being followed by the cat now and they disappear past the door.

Allura holds onto her knees ever so tightly that her fingertips lighten in color. She has to focus, listen, wait. Once she cannot hear the thudding boots, or the clacking of nails on the floor, the princess crawls out from under the table to a vacant room.

She exhales silently in relief.

Looking behind her, she then tip-toes her way over to the door. When she takes four steps out past the doorway, the door slams shut behind her and she is cornered easily from shock.

Allura does not cry out, she only stares in petrified fear. They had waited for her.

Their face is hard to read, features drastically different compared to her own, yet their posture alone tells her to make careful decisions. 

Off to the side, Allura sees that cat from before. She scowls slightly but keeps her eyes straight ahead, willing them to not water up further. Now was not the time to cry.

“Oh, Narti! You found her, nice work.”

It was the lady from earlier again.

She saunters to them, smiling as if she were only talking about something pleasant---like pastries. Allura briefly wonders where her pastry has gone in the middle of this madness. Hopefully it didn’t go to waste if she left it behind.

“Hey, kid.”

Looking up, she scowls slightly more at the lady who grabbed her ankle earlier. Her leg tingled still from the roughness but she refused to be weak in front of her.

“Listen, how did you get here? We’re exactly not the extra-curricular learning center, ya know.”

“I…” Allura opens her mouth to speak but closes it again, frustrated. Gritting her teeth, she looks back and forth between the two Generals.

“Yeah, kid?”

She falls silent after the prompt, not sure how to explain herself. Would it be safe to say everything? Or would she be better off saying she was a stow-away like they had been saying?

“We don't have all day, sweetie.”

Allura flinches, eyebrows furrowing as she looks up again. She wanted to answer her question, she just didn't know how to yet. Her annoyance flares when there's a soft click of the lady's tongue due to impatience.

“I…”

“You know what? Let's just go see Lotor, he'll know what to do.”

She freezes up which in turn lets this strange lady grab her wrist to tug her away. Looking back over her shoulder, little Allura sees the other person- Narti, was it? They were following closely with the cat.

A twinge of fear in her chest, the young princess realizes she will have a hard time getting away now that they both had caught her. She feels numb to it and entertains ways of escape on their trek to see whoever it was, probably another person who would be hard to talk to.

Father and Mother were always easy to talk to, she thinks to herself. They never rushed her and let her have a chance to speak up when she had fears or worries. Why couldn't these people be like them?

Allura finds herself growing more and more fixated on these thoughts that by the time the final door hisses open and she's lead by the still strong, harsh grip on her little wrist, her eyes have gotten watery and her nose has begun to burn. When the hand releases, she clutches the reddened arm to herself and sniffles as quietly as possible.

“Ezor, Narti…”

A man's voice.

But it was not her father's.

That was what undid the young Altean. She could no longer handle enduring this stress in silence as the burden seemingly weighed down on her more and more by the minute. Her sniffle leads to a weak, gasping hiccup that jostles her face enough for a tear to slip down her burning cheek.

Allura was at her wit's end and no longer knew what to do. So as one so young and small would, she honestly expressed her great dilemma in the best way she knew how.

“Oh, by fury--! Ezor, what the fuck did you do?”

An angry woman's voice calls off to the side but the small Altean cannot see her with such blurry vision. It does prompt the mean lady from earlier, Ezor as she now knows her, to sputter and guffaw.

“Do? I didn't do anything, it was all her fault!”

“You're putting the blame on a kid? Come on, even those jerks back on Central Command wouldn't go there so quickly.”

Another voice joins in, less loud but equally disturbed.

“This little thing can't do you harm, no need to be stroppy.”

“Zethrid, Axca,” Ezor pleads over the prolonged keen of the little intruder.

“Enough.”

The raised voices die down. A silence befalls the ship's control room, excluding the staccato hiccups and sobbing from Allura. She does not realize they have fallen silent.

“Lotor… I was just following orders,” Ezor speaks in a lower tone, still pleadingly. She sounds nervous.

“Ease off,” the calm yet authoritative voice replies. 

All eyes fall back on the child standing in the center with blotched cheeks and a reddened nose. She has covered her eyes with fists, desperate for her cries to cease to no avail. It leaves her trembling as if she were but a little sprout blown about in the unforgiving wind.

Silence from the adults continue until one steps forward. 

The soft clack of military-grade boots against this foreign ship's floor approach the princess with cautious speed. Finally, there is the warmest touch to her shoulder that bears a comforting weight so much so that she starts to look past her knuckles in bewilderment.

A handsome face greets the young Altean and she feels as if this were now truly a strange dream – a dream in which she is chased by shouting ladies with cats then manages to be rescued by a dashing figure of royalty. Or at least, so she would expect with her story books as reference. He looked as if he could be Altean were it not for the stunning navy-gold eyes and peculiar ears of a lavender color.

Now that the crying had ceased, Allura simply stared in fascination at this man who knelt before her with a consoling smile. She feels as if he would understand, that if anyone would listen it would be him. Her young mind decides then that he is a prince come for her rescue.

“There we are, little one.”

She smiles tentatively at first but brightens when he soothes her back in a manner she could relate to the kindly young knight-guard who often accompanied her and Coran during their daily routines - lesson after lesson then, finally, playtime. He was always offering her the kindest bits of encouragement, just like this man here. And his smile was just as charming with bright teeth and a crinkle around his eyes as they squint.

“Now then,” he speaks and she backtracks at the familiar accent, believing him to be a prince even further. “Tell me how one so brave and daring as yourself managed to get on my ship. Were you hiding from someone?”

Allura, elated with familiarity, nods and points over to the colorful-skinned lady from earlier. She sputters indignantly but remains quiet for the most part with her arms cross.

“Ezor, you say you found her in the storage unit?”

“Between the crates, like some sort of mouse.”

Allura feels her smile sag into a matching frown when she looks over at Ezor. Surely the kind prince would scold her?

“...she was mean to me,” she tells him quietly, even showing her reddened wrist. 

The gracious man coos and soothes her arm with a light touch of his hand. It has claws, she realizes, but not one sharp point scratched or even grazed her soft arm in the least.

“Before hiding in the crates, do you remember where you were?”

She looks back up and sees him looking at her directly now. Her little ears burn with bashfulness but little Allura is brave again. Her fears quelled, the princess is able to speak up now. 

“I was in the library with Father.”

“What--”

It only took a look from him to silence whoever that was. Probably Ezor. This given silence encourages the young Altean to continue and finally explain herself, a flood of relief washing over her young mind’s buzzing questions and worries.

“We were reading something, something with… with runes,” Allura becomes less and less shy as she continues on, watching his face as he carefully listens. 

“I was playing with them. Like this,” she motions with a finger over her other hand’s palm to show how she had traced the ancient runes. “When I touched them like this, a big light shined. Then it became a wormhole and I fell in! Father didn't grab me in time…”

She waits with bated breath as the gears click and hiss in the lovely man's head. Her eyes wander in their curiosity to see he has the same white hair as her. Surely he was an Altean! It would explain why he listened.

“That sounds so wild you know she couldn't have just made it up,” Ezor pipes up.

Zethrid groans before nodding.

“Sir, do you think this has something to do with your Altean distress signal trick a few days ago?”

Altean! She knew it, he was Altean! He had to be, Allura tells herself as she looks on at the nice man with a small smile of excitement and relief.

“I doubt my signal would result in such dramatic after effects… A signal like that does not summon either, I cannot use alchemy.”

Turning back to face her, he then offers his hand out for a shake. Little Allura reaches out to grab it far faster than she knows Nan Nan or Coran would like because it would startle the other person and that royalty must be calm and graceful always but she did not care much for what would could be said by them. She was far more curious to listen to him. And to also hold his rather warm hand, it was nice.

“What is your name, dear child?”

“Allura! Crown Princess of Altea,” she recites with pride at being able to say it smoothly after so much practice.

“Wh--”

The man glances behind him at the tall woman with big ears before he smiles at her, the tips of his fangs peeking out and his eyes squinting, and in turn introduces himself.

“And I am Prince Lotor.”

The little princess feels as if she may explode from joy. She knew he was a prince! What luck on her part, as Mother would say. 

“Nice to meet you,” she squeaks.


End file.
